Marvin Vangilder: Fuel future beneath our feet

It long has been generally believed that we, the general public, have access to every bit of information needed to understand and exploit our natural environment.

Marvin Vangilder

It long has been generally believed that we, the general public, have access to every bit of information needed to understand and exploit our natural environment. Now we hear that the truth is something else entirely. There, in fact, is good reason to continue to explore our natural environment in anticipation of uncovering still something more that will help to make our future brighter than we have thought possible.

An example has to do with the energy crisis, including the impossibly high cost of the fuel need to keep us mobile. The Missouri Department of Natural Resources, in its latest issue of Missouri Resources, the DNR quarterly periodical publication, discusses the increasing emphasis upon the search for oil and gas to replenish the expensive fuels we have been purchasing from far distant suppliers which in many instances are not exactly our friends.

The publication provides a map showing those significant parts of our state that do hold, underground, significant deposits of oil and gas, or as DNR styles it, black gold. Included are McDonald County to the south of us, with a portion of immediately adjacent Newton County, the northwest corner of Jasper County, Barton County, Vernon County, St. Clair County and much of Cedar County and from that area northward over all the counties continuing to their Iowa and Illinois borders to the north and northeast. A part of southeast Missouri also is inscribed on that map.

Through many long years, we generally have associated great oil-filed riches with neighboring Kansas and Oklahoma in particular and it is true that the resource is much more easily tapped in those states. However, admittedly providing a challenge in techniques and equipment, our state and including our own neighborhood does have access to such wealth as well.

What should we do? It is clear that we need to concentrate upon finding or creating innovative ways to tap the fuel deep beneath us while being particularly careful to see to it that the job is accomplished without serious damage to the surface environment or the air we breathe. We have seen the disastrous results of opening mines for lead, zinc and coal in our own are back in Reconstruction Days and the World War I era that did indeed bring great prosperity here in there time but which left behind highly destructive environmental impacts that still is a challenge to resources and strength if every the damage is to be repaired.

The lesson is obvious enough, that we should be able to see and avoid the danger involved in zooming thoughtlessly toward the target of wealth without regard to the damage that can be done in passage. Knowing the reality of this danger, surely we can drill for oil in sensible ways that are not offensive to our environment.

Perhaps, however, we can achieve that goal with the wonderful result of freeing our nation and all of Western civilization of dependence upon Middle Eastern sources for our fuel.

When that is accomplished we will have reason to be proud of our effort and pleased with our ingenuity and generations to come will be have reason to point to our example with pride and gratitude.

So, by all available means, let’s get to it!

Carthage Press

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